Raise the Hammer

Harper Buys Two More Years

By winning another minority government, Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada have bought themselves another two years or so of power against a divided electorate and, quite possibly, a leaderless opposition.

Harper may have missed the best opportunity to win a majority earlier in the summer, but this snap election was still in his party's interest, if only to pull the plug on Parliamentary investigations into Conservative scandals, get in before the coming recession, and beat next year's constituency redistribution that will put more seats in urban strongholds.

Many pundits are saying that Harper's failure to capture a majority represents a clear failure on his part and a rejection of his policies by most Canadians.

There's plenty of truth to that sentiment, particularly given the weakness and inarticulation of his main opponent, but Harper still managed to achieve his main objective, which was to get the jump on bad news and win a mandate to stay in power a little longer, during which time he can continue to tweak the Canadian government in a more conservative direction: harsher laws, lower corporate taxes, more social wedge issues.

Dion: Unclear Future

At the same time, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion will come under considerable pressure to step down after a disappointing campaign. He specifically failed to communicate his Party's Green Shift carbon tax plan and broadly failed to connect with voters on a personal level.

At the same time, he demonstrated some rapid on-the-job training and made a considerable improvement over the course of the campaign, especially once he began allowing other high profile Liberals into his campaign strategy.

If the Liberals do decide to keep him, it won't be the first time a duffer had a chance to mature into a polished, confident, competent leader.

However, if the pressure to replace him becomes irresistable, that will take the Liberals out of the Parliamentary picture for at least a year, during which Harper can continue to govern as if he has a majority.

FPTP Follies

Above all else, resignation seems to have ruled the day, as the new government emerged substantially the same as the old one. Turnout fell from 65 percent in 2006 to just 59 percent, possibly because many Canadians felt this election to be a pointless waste of time.

Demonstrating the distortionary effects of Canada's first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system, the Conservatives managed to increase their seat count by 19, or 12.6 percent, over their 2006 results while increasing their share of the popular vote by only 1.4 percent, to 37.6 percent.

The Liberals, by contrast, dropped 27 seats or 20 percent with only a four percent drop in the popular vote.

The NDP jumped from 29 to 37 seats, or 23.3 percent, with less than one percent increase in the popular vote.

The Green Party increased their popular vote by two and a half percent to just under seven percent, but won no seats.

The Bloc Quebecois increased from 50 seats to 51, with their share of the popular vote dropping by half a point.

Local Results

Locally, all four of Hamilton's incumbent MPs will be returning to Ottawa.

Hamilton Results by Riding

Riding

Party

Candidate

Votes

% Votes

Ancaster Dundas Flamborough Westdale

Marxist-Leninist

Jamilé Ghaddar

158

0.28%

NDP

Gordon Guyatt

9,632

16.98%

Liberal

Arlene MacFarlane-VanderBeek

15,422

27.19%

Green

Peter Ormond

5,209

9.18%

Conservative

David Sweet

26,297

46.36%

Total

56,718

100.00%

Hamilton Centre

NDP

David Christoperson

19,945

49.27%

Libertarian

Anthony Giles

529

1.31%

Green

John Livingstone

3,625

8.96%

Marxist-Leninist

Lisa Nussey

126

0.31%

Conservative

Leon O'Connor

9,055

22.37%

Communist

Ryan Sparrow

125

0.31%

Liberal

Helen Wilson

7,074

17.48%

Total

40,479

100.00%

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek

Independent

Sam Cino

323

0.67%

Liberal

Larry Di Ianni

13,445

27.93%

Green

David William Hart Dyke

2,142

4.45%

PC Party

Gord Hill

853

1.77%

NDP

Wayne Marston

19,924

41.39%

Conservative

Frank Rukavina

11,456

23.80%

Total

48,143

100.00%

Hamilton Mountain

Conservative

Terry Anderson

16,011

30.66%

Liberal

Tyler Banham

10,531

20.16%

Green

Stephen Brotherston

2,884

5.52%

NDP

Chris Charlton

22,799

43.66%

Total

52,225

100.00%

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

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It's a war of attrition. The Libs couldn't afford another campaign, yet it was forced on them. Their leaders can't afford another leadership campaign, and it will likely be forced on them as well. Harper is exactly where he calculated he would be. A stronger minority with a weakened Liberal party.

350 million is nothing compared to the Conservative mandate to increase military spending every year for the next 20 years. By the time it is done, we will have spent 490 billion on dissolving Canada as peace-keeper

I don't know where this leaves the Libs. I'm not sure any of the prospective replacements can unite - and dare I say excite - the party faithful. And if the party itself can't get excited about a leader then how will the public get engaged.

People keep saying 'it's not about the leader' and for sure the Liberal party has other problems. But how do you solve these problems without a firm hand at the top?

Perhaps if Barack Obama fails to win the US election he'll run things for us up here?

Ben Bull. Cap'n Bully has a new Blog! http://bullysmoviereviews.blogspot.ca/ or something like that.

Ignatieff also supported the Iraq war. I don't believe he ever really backed away from that unequivocally. Also, a Lib insider of my acquaintance doesn't think he has much support outside TO. That was an inspiring speech, though. Old-style philosopher king stuff that's been MIA in Canadian politics for too long. Don't know how well it plays with the kids these days.

He was that most despicable of creatures, a "pro-war liberal" who managed to convince himself that it's possible to to the right thing the right way for the wrong reasons...

Yes. It's frightening what intellectuals can do with their intellects. Summer '07 I had an extremely disagreeable discussion with a Mac history prof who was summoning all her intellectual gifts to justify Israel's outsized attack on Lebanon. Wow.

Too late, he discovered the folly of this belief: "Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences."

Oy. I learned this in high school 20th Century History class. The end does not justify the means. Scary that Ignatieff had to witness the Iraq debacle to relearn this simple lesson.

I have been following the Ignatieff boys' exploits since the '80's. Michael has always struck me as weirdly unempathetic. (Is that a word?)